1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface for creating a job ticket in a network printing system and, in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for updating the user interface to include print options available in the network printing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network printing systems generally comprise an assemblage of different printers, client computers, servers, and other components connected over a network. A print job is assembled at a client computer and transmitted over the network to a server linked to a variety of printers. The printers may have different printing capabilities. Thus, for a given submitted print job, some printers in the network may not be able to process the print job. To route print jobs through a network printing system, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) provides Printing Systems Manager (PSM) products that provide centralized and distributed management of a network printing system. The IBM PSM systems manage the flow of print jobs and insure that a print job is routed to a printer that can handle the job.
A print job is comprised of one or more electronically-stored files and the print attributes therefor. The print attributes inform the printer how to process the files. To assemble print jobs, prior art systems include software installed on the client computer that displays a graphical user interface (GUI). Using a mouse, keyboard, etc., the user selects from a menu of options displayed in the GUI the components and print attributes for a print job. The client computer, under control of the installed software, would then create an electronically-stored job ticket based on the information entered by the user.
In prior art network printing systems, the print attribute options available to the user through the GUI are often unavailable in the network printing system. Further, in network printing systems, the available printers and print attributes often change. If the user selects print attributes that are not available in the network printing system, then the print job will abort. However, a significant amount of time may pass before the system recognizes that the user selected printing attributes that are unavailable. Thus, there is a need in the art for network printing systems that eliminate these problems and facilitate the printing of documents in the network printing system.
To address the requirements described above, the present invention discloses a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for selecting one of a plurality of printers attached to a server with a user interface program to print a print job. The user interface program is installed on a computer in communication with the server. First, the computer determines a first set of one or more print options, wherein each print option in the first set is supported by at least one of the printers. The user interface is then updated to include the first set of print options. After the user interface program is used to select a print option from the first set, the computer determines a second set of one or more print options available with the print option selected from the first set. Each print option in the second set is supported by at least one of the printers that also supports the print option selected from the first set. The user interface program is then updated to include the second set of print options. After the user interface program is used to select a print option from the second set, the computer determines all the printers that support the user selected print options. The user interface program is then updated with the printers that support the user selected print options. The user interface can then be used to select one of the printers that support the user selected print options to print the print job.
In preferred embodiments, the first set of print options comprises one or more types of printers attached to the server and the second set of print options comprises one or more media types available for the selected type of printer.
In still further embodiments, the computer includes a cache. The cache is updated by querying the server for the first set of print options, a second set of print options available for each print option in the first set, and the printers that support the first and second sets of print options and updating the cache with the queried information. This information is obtained by querying the server. When determining with the computer the first set of print options, the second set of print options, and the printers that support the user selected print options, the cache is first queried. If the cache does not include this information, then the server is queried.
It is an object of the present invention to minimize time spent querying for print options available in the network printing system.
It is a further object to minimize queries by only querying for print options when needed.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a cache including print option information which can be queried before a server is queried. Providing the cache for initial queries reduces querying time because it takes longer to query the server than the cache.
It is yet a further object to provide the user with print options supported by the network printing system in order to insure that a printer is available in the network printing system that can process the user selected print options.